


5 times Jack was woken up at 3am

by ASJEO



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Angst, F/M, SJshipday, Sam & Jack Ship Day 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-07-24 19:38:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20019928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ASJEO/pseuds/ASJEO
Summary: "It's three in the morning. This better be important."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I am incapable of writing something without angst so here we go.... 
> 
> I was (stupidly) hoping to write 5 short drabbles for this topic and had them all planned out and this one turned into 1,000 words. 
> 
> Thank you for all of your lovely feedback for my stories so far. I promise I haven't forgotten about after all, update coming soon! X
> 
> SJ Ship Day challenge. Prompt: "It's three in the morning. This better be important."

“It’s three in the morning. This better be important.” Jack O’Neill grumbles as he wipes a hand across his forehead. He clings to the phone in his hand wondering what could possibly have gone wrong in the four hours sine he’d left the base.

“This is Officer Hicks from Colorado Springs PD. Am I speaking to Colonel Jack O’Neill?”

-SJ- 

Jack shoves his hands onto the pocket of his oversized coat as he follows Officer Hicks, listening as the red faced, incredibly round man explains exactly why he’s called him to the police station in the middle of the night. He listens carefully, occasionally frowning at Hicks’ use of language and distaste when describing the person involved in the incident. 

“I thought you military type were supposed to be good at following orders?” Hicks spits as he leads Jack towards the cells. 

Samantha Carter stiffens as soon as she sees him, standing up immediately, looking both apologetic and pissed off at the same time. She opens her mouth to speak when Hicks cuts her off, turning to her commanding officer.

“…And the back chat she gave me? She’s lucky I didn’t wait until the morning to call you. Could have left her in here until the birds started singing,” he turns his attention to Sam, “wouldn’t have liked that now would you sweetheart?” 

Both Sam and Jack bristle as he speaks. 

“I’m telling you Colonel, you need to discipline this one, get her in line, control that mouth of hers-“

“Officer Hicks,” Jack speaks before Sam can, “I appreciate you calling me, and your… generosity in releasing Captain Carter now. Rest assured, she will face serious consequences for her behaviour tonight,” Jack forces a friendly smile to the older man, the last thing they need is for Hicks to actually keep her here all night. He has no intention of mentioning this to Hammond or disciplining her further. He’s pretty sure that she understands the act. 

“Hmm, good.” Hicks steps forwards and unlocks the cell, stepping aside as Sam steps out towards her CO. “The bike is outside the station, I hope you’ve learnt your lesson, sweetheart.”

Her shoulders tense and she bites her tongue, she isn’t in the mood to fake a thank you to the vile man in front of her so she says nothing, not wanting end up back inside the cell. 

“Oh, she has,” Jack places a hand on Sam’s shoulder, gently pushing her towards the exit.

-SJ- 

“I have to say, I could understand getting a call from the police about Daniel being arrested, I can imagine him tying himself to a tree in protest of something or other, maybe even Teal’c being arrested for jaywalking with him being from out of town, but you? That one I was not expecting.”

“Thank you for coming Sir.” Sam avoids his stare as she moves towards her bike. She’s still pissed at Hicks, at everything. Once he had found out that she was in the military, Hicks had been adamant that he would let her go if it was her commanding officer who bailed her out. 

“Uh, that’s it?” Jack asks with a raised eyebrow, watching as she lifts a leg over the bike and sits. 

“Sir,” she sighs, “You heard Officer Hicks-“

“Yeah, I heard what that…man had to say, I wanted to hear your version.” He takes a moment to look at her, really look at her. She is still avoiding his gaze, possibly out of embarrassment. “Were you really doing 110 on that thing?” he gestures to the motorbike. 

“The roads were clear,” Sam mumbles, taking a deep breath. She’s so, so tired. 

“Apart from the cop car?” Jack takes a step forward. “And talking back to that guy? You know guys like him, you know what happens when you talk back to them, you end up in a cell.” 

“So, I’m just supposed to take it?” She snaps, finally meeting his gaze. For just a few seconds there’s a fire there that he hasn’t seen for what feels like a very long time, but it’s gone as suddenly as it appeared. 

She bites her lip and stares at the ground. She so desperately wants to go home. 

“What’s going on?” Jack asks quietly, watching as she bites her bottom lip and takes a deep breath. 

“Sir, thank you for coming. I’m sorry that you had to come out here and it won’t happen again-“

“Carter…Sam,” he takes another step towards her, almost whispering as he speaks to her. “Talk to me.”

“I just…” she takes a moment before looking up at him and speaking again, “I wanted to feel alive.” 

Suddenly everything makes sense. Jolinar. 

Jack wants to kick himself. Three months ago she’d been taken over by the Tok’ra, he’d been terrified that he was going to lose her but she won, the symbiote died and SG1 got Carter back. He was so impressed when she’d returned to work just three weeks after her ordeal and she’d been nothing but the ultimate professional ever since but now, as she stands before him, he sees it. She’s struggling. 

Sam glances at her CO, realisation sweeps across his face. She thinks about telling him that even though it’s meant to be getting better, she’s feeling less and less alive with every day that passes. She wants to tell him that even though she fought it, and she got herself out of that infirmary bed, the only time that she really, truly feels alive is when she is engaged in battle, shooting her gun or driving so fast that everything is a blur. 

She wants to tell him, but she won’t. How can he trust her in the field if he knows that this is how she’s feeling? How can he trust her judgement when she isn’t sure that she trusts her own? 

“Carter, you are alive. Against all the odds, you’re alive.”

“Yes Sir,” she nods, biting her bottom lip. 

“Are you going to be okay?” he asks, making a mental note to check in with her properly tomorrow. “I’m not gonna be called back here in an hour because that asshole caught you speeding again?” He takes great joy in the fact that she smiles as he speaks. 

“He is an asshole,” Sam agrees. 

“Well, let’s not give him another reason to pull you in here huh? Think you can cope with a gentle 50 on the way home?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Okay, night Carter.”

“Sir,” she calls as he turns and walks towards his truck. “Thank you.”

“Anytime, and hey, drive safe,” he offers with a wink and a smile and for the first time in weeks, without adrenaline coursing through her veins, Sam feels alive.


	2. Season 4

“Alright! Alright!” Jack O’Neill trudges towards his front door. The pounding on the door becomes more insistent and he mumbles “This better be important.” He reaches for the door and is surprised to find Daniel resting on the door frame, clearly drunk.

“Daniel?” Jack asks, lifting his eyebrows and Daniel silently stumbles into his house and into his living room.

“Coffee,” the younger man demands as he slumps onto Jack’s sofa.

Minutes later he takes a sip of the hot drink, waiting for the world to stop spinning.

“Any particular reason for this three am house call?”

“Bad day.” Daniel pinches the bridge of his nose and closes his eyes; he knows that he doesn’t have to say anything else.

“How’d you get here?” Jack asks, sitting across from him.

“Cab.”

“What’d you drink?”

“Whiskey.”

They sit in silence for a few moments before Daniel’s eyes open and he looks at his friend for the first time since entering his house. “I don’t know why today,” he sighs, “but today has been…bad.” He lost Sha’re more than two years ago, but the grief still creeps up on him sometimes. He can go for months without that familiar ache in his chest that reminds him of what he’s lost and then suddenly, out of nowhere, there it is. He’d woken up this morning with a heavy heart that he just couldn’t shake.

“I just…” he stops as his voice catches and tears fill his eyes. He’d managed to avoid tears all day. “It doesn’t happen as often, but when it does it hits so hard. I uh, I wonder if it’s because I have further to fall, you know?” Daniel asks, he is met with a blank stare from Jack.

“At the beginning they were all bad days, and then slowly things started to get better and the bad days weren’t so frequent. These days don’t happen as often, but when they do it feels like they hit harder than before.” When it first happened there was no happiness, no joy, so these days felt no different to any others, but now I have good days, great days even and it means that when this…hits, I go from happiness to despair.” He isn’t sure he is making any sense. He doesn’t really care. He feels a sense of relief with every word.

He should have found someone to talk to sooner rather than finding himself at a bar. It had helped, until it didn’t. Daniel had thought about going home to bed and had every intension of doing so but somehow he’d told the cab driver to come here instead.

“I miss her,” he whispers as the first tear fallS.

“I know,” Jack speaks softly, he knows these days too well.

“And I just…I just wish that I could see her, I wish I could talk to her one more time. I wish I could touch her.” He wipes a hand across his eyes.

Today isn’t her birthday, or their anniversary, and it makes him mad that this grief has found him today for no reason, it makes it harder to deal with when he can’t explain it.

“And I’m sorry for coming here, I just… I just need to know how you can do it?”

Jack takes a deep breath. He isn’t sure that he can talk about this right now. He knows that Daniel needs him, but he has locked his grief away for survival.

“I don’t mean… I don’t mean Charlie, Jack.” Daniel watches as Jack’s shoulders tense at the mention of his son’s name. “Sorry.”

“S’okay.” Jack takes a sip of his own coffee.

“I mean Sam.”

Jack meets his stare almost instantly, a hint of surprise quickly replaced with a warning. Don’t go there. “Daniel…”

“I would give anything to see Sha’re again, to hold her and tell her that I love her. How can you see Sam every day and not tell her?”

“Daniel.” Jack’s voice is deep and thick. He isn’t talking about this right now. He isn’t talking about this ever.

“I know how you feel about her, Teal’c told me about the Za’tarc test ad about what you said.”  


“Well, Teal’c has a big mouth.” Jack stands up, ready for this conversation to be over. “You can stay in the spare room-“

“Jack, we face death every day. We could die, soon. And you just pretend that you don’t love-“

“I have no choice!” He doesn’t mean to raise his voice but he feels something building in the pit of his stomach, fear, anger? He can’t tell. The Za’tarc incidence was months ago and no one has talked about it since, he wants to keep it that way. Whatever it is that he feels about Carter needs to stay locked away, for her sake. “I’m not talking about this.”

“You’re being an idiot.”

“You’re drunk and you’ve had a crappy day, I get that, but this conversation alone could get Carter demoted, is that what you want?”

“You know it isn’t. What I want is for my friends to stop pretending they aren’t in love-“

“Daniel!”

“Maybe you already feel some of the pain that I do, maybe being so close to her and not doing anything is, in some way, as painful as loving her and losing her. I would give anything to be able to see Sha’re again and you and I don’t ever want you to feel this way Jack. It’s…it’s unbearable. ”

“I know.” He isn’t sure if he’s talking about Daniel’s situation or his own.

“I understand how frightening this is for you, after everything you’ve lost.” Daniel ignores the way Jack’s jaw clenches and his shoulders tense. “But this isn’t right. You love her.”

Jack says nothing. He won’t deny it, he does love her, he knows that much. The damn force field not only forced him to admit it to himself it also confirmed that he wasn’t fully alone in what he was feeling.

“She’s right there! She’s right there and you’re just pretending she isn’t. You’re choosing to miss out on something that I would literally die for.”

“It’s the right thing, for her.”

“I’m…” Daniel hesitates, noting Jack’s expression, he’s frustrated that much Daniel knows but there’s something else there, sadness. “I’m not trying to make things more difficult I just-“

“I know.” Jack watches as Daniel slumps even further into the sofa. “I know.” He’s angry, but not at Daniel, he knows that his friend is only trying to help.

There are another few moments of silence frowns and brings his hand to his mouth. He is up and stumbling towards the bathroom and makes it just in time before he empties the contents of his stomach.

Later, when Daniel is in the spare room, tucked up in bed with a glass of water and some advil close by, Jack lies in his bed wide awake, unable to ignore Daniel’s words and the churning in his stomach.

He knows that Daniel will feel awful tomorrow, that he only said the things he said because of his own hurt and the whiskey. Jack will force and smile and tell him it isn’t a big deal; he’ll change the subject quickly and ask him how he is and try to ensure that next time he comes to him right away rather than drinking himself stupid.

When he eventually drifts off to sleep his vivid dreams are filled with images of her, thoughts of touching her, loving her. He wakes with a deep ache in his chest.


End file.
